Letters to the Editor

Sept. 13, 2014

To the Sports Editor:

Re “After Punch Is Seen, Rice Is Out,” Sept. 9: The Baltimore Ravens’ decision to cut Ray Rice is a joke. What did they think had happened before this video surfaced, a game of patty-cake gone awry? They did not need a video to do the right thing, they just needed integrity. Unfortunately, there is way too little of that to be had in Baltimore and the N.F.L.

It is becoming clearer and clearer that the most brutal part of football isn’t what happens on the field. The “sweep the bodies under the rug until we get caught” approach to business is a disgrace — one that’s very sadly trickling down to every level of the sport.

JONATHAN KOFFLER

New York

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To the Sports Editor:

For all the rage being directed at the N.F.L. for its original wrist slap on Ray Rice, the real outrage should be directed at the Atlantic County prosecutors in New Jersey. The N.F.L. is claiming that it did not see the video until Monday. However, the prosecutors had the video and basically let Rice walk for the assault.

If the victim does not want to testify, the case usually becomes hard to prosecute. In this case, they had the assault on tape and still let Rice walk. An investigation into that decision should be commenced by Gov. Chris Christie immediately.

RONALD BALTER

Brooklyn

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To the Sports Editor:

Penn State football, the N.F.L. and the Vatican do not have women in their inner circles. Women have a civilizing influence. Child molestation and a mild response to physical abuse of women might not have occurred had there been some female presence in the power centers of these groups.

KATIE MOYER

Lewisburg, Pa.

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Ray Rice during a Ravens practice in June. Rice is now suspended indefinitely.CreditPatrick Semansky/Associated Press

To the Sports Editor:

As a mental health professional, I am troubled by some of the oversimplifications that are rampant in the discussion of the Ray Rice case. It seems important to distinguish between the policy of the N.F.L. toward domestic violence involving players, and the need for complexity in our understanding of the psychodynamics of violence in intimate relationships. Punishment and zero tolerance by an organization can and should coexist with sensitivity and compassion in thinking about and helping those individuals who are involved in violent relationships, both men and women.

CLAIRE BASESCU

New York

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To the Sports Editor:

Take a sport that protects its athletes from the kind of accountability that ordinary citizens must accept, mix it with the male violence that underpins the sport as a whole, add that the only role for women is as scantily clad cheerleaders, and then keep in mind that the N.F.L. has historically been unwilling to take seriously the lengthy record of domestic violence compiled by some players. Finally, throw in a culture with privileges to such a degree that even dog killing and rape are not disqualifiers, and still we are shocked by what has unfolded in the Ray Rice case.

There is a lot of shame and a lot of blame to go around.

JON MCGILL

Baltimore

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To the Sports Editor:

Many young athletes need life coaches, too. They must learn that violence, of whatever sort, has no place off the playing field.

In turn, college and professional coaches cannot assume that their male and female athletes have acquired what used to be called the common virtues, and must have a team of properly trained counselors to guide them in the early stages of their careers.

MATTHEW MENKEN

Laguna Beach, Calif.

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To the Sports Editor:

Re “Seeing Abuse, and a Pattern Too Familiar,” Sept. 10: Three women die every day in this country, murdered by a husband or a partner. That is a statistic not even the N.F.L. can ignore. Those of us who have survived domestic abuse need to reach out to our sisters, offering support and consolation. To judge them is to consign them to another hell.

JESSICA TEICH

Pacific Palisades, Calif.

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To the Sports Editor:

Re “Lucrative League Sees Only What It Wants to See,” Sept. 11: Michael Powell neglected to recount another ring of the N.F.L.'s Circus Maximus that epitomizes its inbred misogyny. Should we not connect the cheerleader lawsuits against the Buffalo Bills, the Cincinnati Bengals, the Oakland Raiders, the Jets and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers for withholding payment of a minimum wage as obvious evidence that the N.F.L. sees women as objects to be used, as adornments and not as equal human beings?

Goodell & Company need a fundamental moral re-education if they wish to regain any respectability.

ROGER KORMAN

Philadelphia

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To the Sports Editor:

The only way that the N.F.L. will change is if we, the viewing public, speak with our pocketbooks. As a lifelong fan of the “team from Washington,” I have become more and more disillusioned with the league — its greed, its violence against women, its denial of the science linking football and brain injuries — to the point that I have committed, and urge others to commit, to turning off the N.F.L. until it puts morals over money.

AARON MENDELSOHN

New York

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To the Sports Editor:

Re “Views on Race Again Prompt an N.B.A. Sale,” Sept. 8: Nowhere in this article does Bruce Levenson, the controlling member of the ownership group of the Atlanta Hawks, make any statement derogatory to blacks. If anybody is being derogated it is those whites who, he believes, will not attend games in which they are a minority of the audience.

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Bruce Levenson has led the ownership group of the Atlanta Hawks since 2004.CreditJohnny Crawford/Atlanta Journal-Constitution, via Associated Press

Levenson is a businessman attempting to increase the audience for his team. Nothing in the articles suggests that he is trying to reduce his black audience or discriminate against those fans in any way.

Donald Sterling, the former owner of the Los Angeles Clippers, made clearly racist remarks and was twice sanctioned for racist practices in his real estate business. To compare Levenson to him is grossly unfair.

BUDD S. SCHWARTZ

Westport, Conn.

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To the Sports Editor:

The news media might have identified the wrong target of Bruce Levenson’s careless remarks. He should have referred to analytic, market-researched data before trotting out that hackneyed stereotype of white Southern males being ignorant racists. The sluggish season-ticket subscriptions may be the result of many factors, and Levenson’s instincts as a business owner may have had a germ of truth. This does not, however, excuse his offensive generalizations.

DAVID SCHOFFMAN

Los Angeles

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To the Sports Editor:

Re “A Tennis Board Woven With Conflicts,” Aug. 23: The United States Tennis Association prides itself on both its policies and practices with respect to conflict of interest and maintains strict protocols for both identifying and addressing both real and perceived conflicts.

With respect to the specific issues cited in this article, we wish to point out the following: In two of the instances in which U.S.T.A. board members’ tennis programs received U.S.T.A. funding grants, The Times failed to note that these programs — the Harlem Junior Tennis and Education Program and the Junior Tennis Champions Center — had received similar grants for many years before either Katrina Adams or Ray Benton joined the board. The same can be said of the U.S.T.A.'s business relationship with the Tennis Media Company, a business relationship that began when The New York Times owned Tennis Magazine, which was also forged long before Jeff Williams was even employed by the magazine, let alone a U.S.T.A. board member.

The fourth example you cite is completely irrelevant, as John Korff was not a U.S.T.A. board member when he sold the New York City Triathlon to Life Time Fitness.

DAVE HAGGERTY

White Plains, N.Y.

The writer is the chairman and president of the U.S.T.A.

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To the Sports Editor:

Re “Spinning Pinstripes Into Gold,” Sept. 7: Steiner Sports represents everything that is wrong with baseball today. Pure and treasured memories of games watched, plays made and heroes worshiped have given way to a culture that elevates investment opportunities over innocence.

BARRY L. WARREN

Port Jefferson, N.Y.

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To the Sports Editor:

Re “The U.S.T.A. Is Warming to the Benefits of College,” Sept. 5: If the U.S.T.A wants to turn America’s colleges into a player development pipeline, it will find that Title IX has made that job more difficult.

A 2010 study by the American Sports Council found that the percentage of N.C.A.A. Division I colleges that sponsored women’s tennis teams declined since 1995. Given that women’s tennis teams don’t have large rosters that can help universities comply with Title IX’s strict gender quota, there’s a disincentive to add a tennis program, compared with a rowing team that can have a roster of as many as 60 athletes.

As for the men’s game, Division I team sponsorship declined significantly over the same period, much as it has for other men’s sports.